Twin Cities Receives 2026 JFK Profile in Courage Award for Metro Surge Response, With Renee Good and Alex Pretti in the Room
MSR editor Jasmine McBride reports on the Twin Cities receiving the 2026 John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award at the JFK Presidential Library in Boston, honoring residents who risked their lives to protect neighbors and immigrant community members during Operation Metro Surge, with Sheletta Brundidge carrying the faces of Renee Good and Alex Pretti on her jacket into the ceremony.
When Sheletta Brundidge walked into the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston on Sunday night, she carried two people with her.
On the back of a one-of-a-kind jacket were the faces of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, a U.S. citizen shot and killed by an ICE agent in south Minneapolis on Jan. 7, and a 37-year-old Minneapolis man shot and killed by federal agents days later. Both casualties of Metro Surge, the federal government’s unprecedented immigration enforcement operation that flooded the Twin Cities with up to 4,000 ICE officers earlier this year.
“They gave the ultimate sacrifice for their courage, and they should be in the room when that award is handed out,” said Brundidge, host of The Sheletta Show on WCCO Radio and founder of ShelettaMakesMeLaugh.com.
The people of the Twin Cities received the 2026 John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award on May 31 at a ceremony attended by roughly 700 people, honored for risking their lives to protect neighbors and immigrant community members during the surge. It is one of the most prestigious awards in American civic life, first given in 1989 and typically reserved for elected officials. Past recipients include Barack Obama (2017), George H.W. Bush (2014) and Gabrielle Giffords (2013).
This year was different.
“When our politics are under so much pressure, we don’t see as much progress in elected office, and we’ve needed the everyday people who are simply neighbors to stand up and defend these fundamental values of our democracy,” said Rachel Flor, executive director of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation.
The deaths of Good and Pretti cast a long shadow over the surge and the recognition that followed. Good, 37, was shot through the windshield of her purple SUV near 34th Street and Portland Avenue after an ICE agent stepped in front of her vehicle as she attempted to drive away. The Department of Homeland Security said the officer fired in self-defense, claiming Good used her vehicle as a weapon. Witnesses and video footage told a different story. State officials said federal agents blocked a doctor at the scene from performing CPR. Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan called it “an unspeakable act of violence.”
Pretti, also 37, was shot by federal agents days later. The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office and the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension launched a joint investigation, but state and local investigators were physically denied access to the crime scene even after obtaining a court-issued search warrant. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison filed suit to preserve evidence.
“Federal agents are not above the law and Alex Pretti is certainly not beneath it,” Ellison said.
Against that backdrop, Twin Cities residents took to the streets in Minnesota’s coldest weeks by blowing whistles, making signs, running buses, hiding groceries behind dumpsters for immigrant neighbors to collect. Brundidge led a prayer vigil at the Renee Good memorial and launched a GoFundMe for businesses affected by the federal presence.
“We were just doing what needed to be done,” she said. “People were making sure immigrant girls had tampons, hiding groceries behind dumpsters that we knew people would come and pick up later, doing bus runs, and even moms were using Slack like corporate CEOs to galvanize and get people to places where they needed to be.”
Flor described the response as remarkable precisely because it had no single leader.
“It was a robust response that was essentially leaderless,” she said. “Everyone felt a responsibility and took the lead in their own ways.”
For Brundidge, showing up came with real personal stakes. After the shootings of Pretti and Good, she said she had to prepare her children for the possibility she might not come home.
“I had to tell my kids, if I’m not here when you come home from school, mommy may be in jail or worse,” she recalled.
“It is an honor to receive this award,” said Brundidge. “When God tells me to do something, sometimes I talk back, but generally I just get it done whether or not I understand it or like it.”
Accepting the award on behalf of the Twin Cities were Imam Yusuf Abdulle, co-founder of the Somali American Leadership Table and executive director of the Islamic Association of North America; Natalie Ehret, founder of Haven Watch; Carolina Ortiz, associate executive director of COPAL; and Zena Stenvik, superintendent of Columbia Heights Public Schools.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell was also honored at the ceremony with a 2026 Profile in Courage Award for protecting the independence of the Federal Reserve amid years of political pressure.
Brundidge, reflecting on the weekend, framed it not as a celebration but as a reminder.
“Looking back now, you realize what a miracle it was that we showed the world what showing up for your brothers and sisters, your neighbors and the least of these looks like,” she said.
To view the ceremony, visit jfklibrary.org.
Jasmine McBride welcomes reader responses at jmcbride@spokesman-reocrder.com.